Reflect on NAACP's 100-year anniversary

Veronica Shoemaker, 79, former Fort Myers City Councilwoman, stands in an area that used to be called "the bottoms." The area, just north of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard near the railroad tracks, was where the black community lived in "shanty homes." The tracks separated black and white communities. "There were laws against African Americans going west of the railroad tracks," she says.

Staff

Wilson Bradshaw, president of Florida Gulf Coast University, remembers growing up in segregated schools in West Palm Beach. He marvels at how times have changed and how the NAACP has helped in evolution of equality.

Staff

David Bankston is the chief technology officer and co-founder of Neighborhood America, a technology company based in Naples.

Staff

Dr. Ann Knight, a former Fort Myers City Councilwoman, sits in an old school desk in the classroom where she attended first grade at the WIlliams Academy Black History Museum. The Williams Academy was the first government-funded school for black students in Fort Myers and now sits on Henderson Avenue just north of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in Fort Myers.

Staff

Ralph Anthony, a 16-year veteran of the Naples Police department, was the community policing officer for the River Park area in Naples for four years.

Staff

Oliver Phipps, the principal of Estates Elementary School in Golden Gate Estates, stands with students of every color after he gave a black history presentation. Phipps is the son of teachers. His mother was a third-grade teacher in a school with all black students and his father taught in an all white elementary school.

Staff

LaVerne Franklin, former Collier County NAACP president, sits inside the sanctuary Bethel AME Church, a historically black church, in Naples. Franklin, originally from Philadelphia, says that God's words have given her strength to persevere through the tough times of segregation and inequality.